Hybridizing Habitus and Reflexivity: Towards an Understanding of Contemporary Identity?

“…and habit (Dewey, 1983[1922]; Gronow, 2008), or from a Bourdieuian perspective the limits placed on reflexivity by habitus in a class divided society (Adams, 2006), as well as issues of the unconscious and the way it can be considered in relation to the reflexive dialogue (Burkitt, 2010a, 2010b).”

“It thus joins a growing body of work that seeks to hybridize reflexivity and the habitus (surveyed in Adams 2006).1 ∗I would like to thank Margaret Archer, Diana Coole, Jason Edwards, Frédéric Vandenberghe, and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of the material in…”

“Instead, it points to the “complex coexistence of reflexive awareness and habitual dispositions” (Adams 2006, p.522).”

“Experiencing the tensions between different fields can, according to Adams (2006), “create dissonance and an awareness of ‘objective’ gender relations in these fields”: the “lucidity of the excluded” can in turn generate resistance and negotiation (p.”

“Linked to the backstage activities, four papers rely on the reflexivity theories of Giddens (1991), Beck (1992) and Adams (2003, 2006) attempt to explain how individuals build own identities in the fast-changing technological world.”

“…a greater array of alternative images of femininity but rather from “tensions inherent in the concrete negotiation of increasing conflictual female roles,” which occurs when women move between various social fields (e.g., family, work, sport; p. 111; also see Adams, 2006; Hills, 2006; McNay, 2000).”

“Indeed, if reflexivity is now a normative aspect of most fields, then it potentially loses its potential as a clarifying and potentially transformative research practice (Adams, 2006).”

“Some recent attempts, for example, by Sweetman (2003) and Adams (2006), focus on developing a particular notion, namely, ‘reflexive habitus’, arguing that being reflexive has already become a habitus for those who live in the era of modernity.6 A recent work by Archer, Making Our Way through the…”

“Located between Archer and Giddens, Bourdieu’s habitus views agents as autonomous and empowered, but only to the extent that structure is reproduced (Adams, 2006).”

“A closer look at the socio-cultural origins of resistant supporters would also provide more theoretical implications and would inform the discussion of the relationship between reflexivity and habitus (Adams, 2006; Elder-Vass, 2007; Mouzelis, 2007; Sweetman, 2003).”

“I draw on hybrid theories of identities (Benhabib, 1992; Butler, 1990; Adams, 2006), that recognise identities as multiple and fluid, and present social identities as unhelpful guides in designing participatory methods, principally the mythical notion of the competent allpowerful adult (Lee, 2001).”

“The tendency to separate self-reflexivity processes demeans the complex and ongoing relationship between subjectivity, agency and social structure, particularly as expressed via consumption practices, and provides us with a caricature portrait of the individual as rational actor (Adams, 2006).”

“For an overview, see Adams (2006).”

“His concept of "habitus" (Bourdieu, 1977, 1990) can be combined with that of reflexivity in order to grasp more deeply personal identity (Adams, 2006).”

“This leads to the importance of Adams’ (2006, 2007) notion of ‘post-reflexive choice’.”

“Though explicitly refuted by Archer (2010b), the work of Bourdieu and Archer may be bridged by Fleetwood’s (2008) empirical combination, Adams’ (2006) hybridization and Elder-Vass’ (2007) ontological and theoretical reconciliation.”

“This leads to calls for sociologists to adopt what Sweetman (2003) terms ‘habitual reflexivity’ and Adams (2006) ‘hybridising habitus and reflexivity’; reflexivity is situated within the individual’s habitus and, as a result of individualization, there is a greater emphasis on this reflexivity…”

“Lois McNay therefore argues that “reflexivity arises in the specific, concrete negotiation of conflictual fields, not amidst the world of increased exposure to choice-based social systems posited by the extended reflexivity thesis” (Adams, 2006, 512–515).”

“Adams (2006) has pointed out the debate that exists amongst scholars about the ‘reflexivity thesis’: on one end of the spectrum are the supporters of ‘self-reflexivity’ such as Giddens (1991), who posits that individuals organise their ways of life through a reflective day-to-day biography in which…”

“The third thematizing of social interaction suggested is that social interaction is a dynamic that demonstrates the often hybrid character of the routinized and the reflexive modes of consumption performances (Adams, 2006; Wilk, 2009) – in this case food consumption.”

“The habitus and reflexivity need not, after all, be as inimical to each other as they first appear (see Adams, 2006), and Skeggs’ (2004) argument that reflexivity might be a disposition of the middle classes, generated out of a distance from necessity, has some force.”

“In other words, in order to “make sense of their lives,” they constantly “redefine” their self and identity in relation with others (Adams 2006, 513).”

“Current understandings of identity attempt to balance agency or reflexivity on the one hand, with the unconscious habitus on the other (Adams 2006).”

“…hybridising habitus, but such works explore the possibility of theoretical hybridisation, between what can appear to be the overly deterministic concept of habitus, and the possibly too agentic, rational and strategic, approaches around reflexivity (see, for example, Adams, 2006; Elder-Vass, 2007).”

“Habitus can hybridize with reflexivity, such that social actors can give detailed accounts of what they think they are doing and how it relates to their identities (Adams, 2006).”

“Nonetheless, Adams (2006) is right to assert that a field’s assimilation or rejection of individuals’ dis-positions—of the field imposing itself as habitus—can respectively result in a sense of belonging or disconnection with the norms of that space of practice.”

“Adams (2006) notes that different contexts offer various opportunities to facilitate reflexive thinking.”

“Adams (2006) doubted that via habitus, individual agency is a bounded process, ‘compromised and attenuated by social structure and unconsciousness’ in Bourdieu’s deterministic writing (p. 515).”

“Habitus, described as a ‘‘disposition to act,’’ is not necessarily conscious or articulated but becomes embodied in people through practice ( Adams 2006, pp. 514 –516).”

“12 For a review of the contribution of Bourdieu to debates about identity see Adams (2006).”

“discussed in the introduction (as also in Adams, 2007), despite its centrality to Bourdieu’s interpretation of the relationship between habitus and field. Bourdieu uses the concept of strategy ‘to designate the objectively oriented lines of action which social agents continually construct in and through practice’ (Bou…”

“Symbolic forms of capital, associated with prestige or positive reputation, become shared amongst members of a social group who share a habitus (Bourdieu 1986; Adams 2006).”

“…that Bourdieu’s work is valuable because it demonstrates the difficulty of change: ‘... it provides a corrective to certain theories of reflexive transformation which overestimate the extent to which individuals are able to reshape identity’ (see also Adkins 2003; Sweetman 2003; Adams 2006;).”

“…most notably the work of Scott Lash (1993) on aesthetic reflexivity, Tulloch and Lupton (2003) on risk and reflexivity in everyday life, and various efforts to qualify and refine some of Beck and Giddens’ most provocative assertions about the nature of reflexivity (Adams, 2006; Sweetman, 2003).”

“In some circumstances, “our capacity for reflexive thought can leave us recognizing but unable to do anything about our lack of freedom” (Craib, 1992, p. 150; Adams, 2006; Brooks & Wee, 2008).”

“We advocate that the flexibility within Bourdieu’s model (Reay 2004; Adams 2006; Abrahams and Ingram 2013; Emmerich 2013; Atkinson 2016) and the heuristic principle behind the habitus (Hodkinson 1998) provides us with a sharper set of thinking tools in which to interrogate the social world.”

“A key inspiration is the idea that rapid social change and mobility produce misfit between embodied practices and social requirements (McNay, 1999; Reay, 2002; Adkins, 2004; Adams, 2006).”

“Drawing from this, our research also builds on Adams (2006) argument that ‘many possibilities remain’ (p. 515), through innovative policy design and implementation.”

“Co-designing in an environment, which designers and stakeholders are equally familiar with, permits to rely on tacit conventions of choices and methods because of a common habitus (Adams, 2006) and indexicality.”

“The notion of habitus has been criticised for being overly deterministic and reducing the potential for individual agency (Adams, 2006).”

“Maintaining emotional reflexivity is influenced by one’s “post-reflexive choices” (Adams, 2006), the habitus within which to enact new awareness and insight.”

“embodied structures in relation to subjectivity and social transformation (Adams, 2006); it involves ques-”

“Adams (2006) and Threadgold (2010) emphasise that, rather than promoting agency, reflexivity amongst marginalised groups can serve to heighten awareness that one lacks agency.”

“1 Adams (2006) seems to be making a similar point in his discussion of ‘hybridized accounts of reflexivity’.”

“This is to say, as Adams (2006) concludes his essay by quoting Bauman (1998, p. 86), ‘all of us are doomed to the life of choices, but not all of us have the means to be choosers’.”

“…of the habitus has exerted enormous influence in sociology (e.g. Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, 18–20; Shilling 1993; King 2000; Pickel 2005; Sayer 2005; Adams 2006), with his analysis of the ‘religious habitus’ evident increasingly in theoretical and substantive analyses of religion (e.g. Bourdieu…”

“Acquiring or embodying a ‘feel for the game’ is related to ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu 1984), in that it is enacted pre-reflexively, or develops unconsciously (Adams 2006).”

“In order to counter overly agentic views of the subject, Adams (2006) then calls for attention to ‘post-reflexive choice’, a term which describes the structural possibilities actually open to subjects regardless of their reflexive wishes or unconscious desires.”

“Adams (2006) similarly argues that despite reflexive possibility, such choices are never abstract or asocial, and are consequently subject to certain restrictions.”

“Bourdieu’s theories describe how “the reflexive process is itself a form of habitus … and it is the scientific and academic fields that tend to generate reflexivity as a habitus-field requirement (Adams 2006:515).”

“…and qualitative) investigation of the future expectations among Australian secondary school students—consider the risk management of the young people to be a driving force in the development of a ‘‘reflexive habitus’’ (cf. also Adams, 2006; Atkinson, 2010: 71; McNay, 1999; Sweetman, 2003).”

“Thus, Bourdieu’s framework does allow for the transformation of habitus via conscious deliberation and action (Bourdieu 1990a, 131; Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, 116; Adams 2006).”

“We also acknowledge that the expressions of our reflexivity are bounded and constrained, both materially and culturally, and are not always liberatory or transformative (Adams, 2006).”

“But the practice approach to identity is stronger within anthropology (Kondo 1990; Mattingly 1998; Holland et al. 1998; Wenger 1998), and in sociological approaches inspired by Bourdieu (Adams 2006; Bottero 2010).”

“He paid less attention to the precariousness of positions, and the consequent arbitrariness of what can become a valuable resource – although in later work (Bourdieu & Accardo, 1993, pp. 3–5, 86) he somewhat addressed these questions (see Adams, 2006; Wacquant, 2016).”

“Authors such as Beck et al. (1994) refer to reflexive processes in an undifferentiated manner, extrapolating what may be the experience of a group with particular socio-economic characteristics to the whole of the population, irrespective of their national and social contexts.”

“Attempts have recently been made to reconcile Bourdieu’s and Archer’s concepts of reflexivity (Adams 2006; Elder-Vass 2007), but Archer (2010) appears to be dissatisfied with them.”

“Various scholars have examined this point, viewing the minimal role that Bourdieu assigns to consciousness as limiting the agentic potential of the habitus (Adams 2006; Bonham 1999; Noble and Watkins 2003; Sayer 2005).”

“She relates this to Bordieu’s notion of ‘habitus’ (Adams 2006).”